


Given the Chance

by JacquelineHyde



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:20:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacquelineHyde/pseuds/JacquelineHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is determined that she will find a way to become dear to him in her own right, to help him soothe away the look of bleak sadness he seems to wear more often than not, but how can she if he will not give her the chance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Given the Chance

**Author's Note:**

> So this is one of those stories that I've been working on for an altogether embarrassing amount of time, that I eventually just got fed up and posted so I would stop picking at it and massively overhauling it in the back of my mind. I am more or less happy with the result, and I hope it provides some enjoyment. ^_^

When she thinks on the last time her lord husband was in this room with her, Catelyn thinks wearily that perhaps it is just as well that he has not come to her in well over a moon.  
  
Well over a moon it has been since the night that she clutched at the tiny kernel of hope that the closeness and warmth that has begun to grow between them might make him willing to trust her with the name of the woman he had loved and lost, and asked if Ashara Dayne was, as the household whispered, the mother of his other son.  
  
Clearly, she thinks bitterly, gut twisting with shame to recall how she had trembled and shrank back from his towering anger, it will be a long, long time before she is worthy of the secrets of Eddard Stark.  
  
Well over a moon it has been since that terrible night, and well over a moon since he last touched her.  
  
A part of her can nearly believe her own assurances that it is just as well, for even if she could trust herself to put her anger and hurt far enough aside to receive him as graciously as she knows she ought, she has become fond enough of this solemn northern husband of hers that it would rip at her to lie beneath him and wonder who it is that she becomes when he closes his eyes tightly against the sting of reality.  
  
But there is an equal part of her that is overwhelmed with frustration at the way he keeps his distance. She is determined that she will find a way to become dear to him in her own right, to help him smooth away the look of bleak sadness he seems to wear more often than not, but how can she if he will not give her the chance?  
  
Catelyn does not think that it is anger that keeps him from her, not any longer. He seems more sad than anything when he looks at her now.  
  
The possibility occurs to her that it is a resurgence of loyalty towards his lost love, whoever she might have been, that will not let him come to her, that has kept him far from her her except when strictly necessary in matters of the household and the care of their small son. Perhaps her hesitant question has reminded him of just what he has lost, and left him wracked with guilt that he has begun to enjoy his wife's bed.  
  
The thought that this may never change, that Lord Eddard –  _Ned_ , he had asked her to call him, although she is not certain that she is still welcome to do so – will stubbornly refuse to ever let her become more than an obligation, leaves her breathless with pain, and so angry that for a moment, she strongly considers bolting the door. For that brief moment, she wants nothing to do with him, should he suddenly recall that bedding his wife is a rather crucial step in making another child, or should his physical needs become more pressing than the desire to remain faithful to his ghosts.  
  
Yes, perhaps it is just as well that he keeps his distance for the time being.  
  
But while her heart aches with sorrow to recall Ned's cold fury that night, to think on the reason for it, and knows that she is not ready to risk further pain just yet, her body aches with something far sweeter, recalls well what she has missed these past weeks, and is ready and eager to forgive, to beg forgiveness, anything that might bring an end to his absence from her bed.  
  
She will not ask forgiveness, of course,  _cannot_  ask it, not when she has done nothing that warrants an apology, but some nights it becomes difficult to remember.  
  
He did not come to her every night before that last one, nor every other night, but often enough that she has become accustomed to sharing this intimacy with another, and she feels the lack of it more sharply than she could have imagined when she was a girl, taught that it was a sadly necessary evil.  
  
She presses a hand between her legs to soothe the ache that intensifies each time she considers that necessary evil, and turns her face into the pillow to muffle a low moan as the contact sends a bolt of heat through her.  
  
Cautiously, half expecting the Septa to materialize with a sharp cuff to the ear and a sharper reminder that this is  _not_  how ladies behave, particularly when they have husbands with needs to be seen to, she presses her hand there again, harder, and bites her lips against another soft cry.  
  
A wave of shame catches her by surprise, but it fades quickly. After all, it may be a long while since those visits from Brandon, when their furtively stolen kisses and touches amid the trees and dappled sunlight had left her desperately craving  _more_ , but she remembers well enough.  
  
It is merely the difference between a man who grudgingly respected her wishes to remain a maiden for their wedding night, and a man who refuses to take what is his for reasons that she wishes she could not so easily fathom.  
  
And Catelyn is reasonably certain that her husband goes to see no one else – the desire to remain faithful to his lost love would hardly lead him to spurn his wife's bed, only to hop into the nearest willing serving girl – so she can only imagine that he has done this as well.  
  
Angry as she still is, much as she knows that it is not her he thinks of when he sees to his own needs, she does her very best not to think of him at all, to take her own enjoyment without considering him in the slightest.   
  
Really, she thinks it only fair.  
  
Her fingers slide easily through her folds, and she blushes brightly at how easily she has reached this state, with only her own touch and thoughts to spur her on.  
  
The pleasure rushes up on her swiftly, and she is a heartbeat from release when she opens her eyes to find him staring down at her, transfixed.  
  
With a horrified cry, she scrambles for the heavy quilts that have been kicked to the foot of the bed. Ned catches her hand as she reaches for them.  
  
“You need not stop, my lady. I will leave, or--” Ned swallows thickly, his eyes jumping from where her shift is bunched up around her hips, to the exposed line of her leg, to her hand, clasped in his, her fingers still damp. “I will leave. I heard you cry out, and thought you might be injured. I—I shall go now.”  
  
Catelyn watches his back as he retreats, heart thudding rapidly. He is at the door before she finds her voice.   
  
“My lord,” she calls, before she is entirely aware of what she means to say. “Please, stay.”  
  
He turns, and with little hesitation hurries back to the bed, to her waiting arms. Rising up on her knees as he approaches, she cups his cheek and pulls him close to kiss him. He sighs into her mouth, one hand tightening in her hair, skimming down to pull it free of its braid.  
  
Her touch dances lightly down his chest, but before she can move to slip beneath his shirt, he takes her hands and pushes her gently away.  
  
She is puzzled, and more than a little annoyed, but follows obediently as he turns her to face away, and then sits and pulls her close back against him.  
  
He leans forward to kiss her, and the heat of his mouth at her neck and shoulder, of his hand cupping and gently stroking her breast, are echoed by the heat low in her belly, barely subsided, until she thinks hazily that she might come apart just from this. By the time he takes her hand again and guides it down her thigh to pull up her shift, urging her legs apart, she has completely forgotten to be ashamed of the state that he found her in.  
  
(Particularly when he does not seem especially horrified by his wife's behaviour, if the rapid beat of his heart where she leans back against his chest, the press of his cock hard against her bottom are any reliable indication.)  
  
Twisting in his arms, she pulls him close to kiss him again, muffling a sharp cry against his mouth as he moves their entwined hands between her legs, guides her movements as their fingers slide together through her wetness and in light circles over her clit, swallowing his answering groan as she grinds back against him.  
  
He releases her hand, and then he is touching her everywhere, kneading her breasts, gripping her hips to pull her closer, pushing her shift impatiently out of the way and moving in dizzy circles over her belly, running feverishly up and down her thigh.  
  
Caught up in the sensation of his touch, the desperate hunger she can feel in it, she lets her hand drop to her side, her head drop back against his shoulder, burying her face against his neck.  
  
“Don't stop,” he orders, almost a growl.  
  
She moans breathlessly, for it is very different from how he normally speaks to her when they share a bed. If he speaks at all, it is to make certain that he has not caused her harm or discomfort. Ned is far more likely to ask her permission to continue than to issue orders, and the departure thrills her in a way that has her obeying immediately, fingers curling and twisting. It is not enough, not nearly, and she gives a whine of frustration, barely hears his low chuckle in response. He takes and positions her hand, guiding her fingers in slow, firm strokes, his own fingers thrusting sharply and deeply inside her, and it takes very little before she is shuddering helplessly, his arms are tightening around her, her cry of release breaking the still of the room filled only with their mingled rapid breathing.  
  
He brushes light kisses over her temple and cheek as she calms, and his low groan when she shifts against him gusts warm over her ear.  
  
But when she turns and climbs into his lap to kiss him again, one hand wedging between them to pull eagerly at the laces of his breeches, he pushes her gently away.  
  
“I ought to return to bed, my lady.”  
  
Catelyn nearly points out that there is a perfectly serviceable bed right here, and she is more than willing to share it, but the giddy, peaceful contentment is already fading, his absence leaving her cold and unsettled, as though she has just woken from a pleasant dream to find reality harsh and inhospitable.  
  
“Have I disgusted you?” she ask quietly as he turns to go.  
  
He turns back and stares at her for a long moment, then down at his very obvious arousal, and then back at her, expression pure incredulity. She holds his gaze, waiting for an answer, and his face softens.  
  
“You were very beautiful. You  _are_  very beautiful. I only thought to leave you to rest.”  
  
“And will  _you_  be able to rest easily as you are?” she asks, eyes flicking pointedly downward.   
  
He hesitates.  
  
“It makes no matter.”  
  
“Of course it does,” she says briskly, climbing from the bed and pulling him back towards it. “I can hardly let my husband walk away in such a state. Even if you do not wish to to lie together--”  
  
“It is not that I do not wish it,” he breaks in, hands landing at her hips as she pushes him to sit and moves to straddle his lap again.   
  
She closes her eyes briefly, tamping down a surge of anger.  
  
“Ned, please. Do not insult me. You have not come to my bed in weeks. What else can it mean, but that you do not wish it? I mean no reproach, my lord,” she assures him quickly, when he looks as though he means to object. “I will not ask why, and I will wait as long as you need. I would only have you recall that it will be very difficult to make another babe without sharing a bed.”  
  
With a long sigh, he raises a hand to cup her cheek, and she thinks, furious with herself, that he must have heard the catch in her voice.  
  
“I have wanted you, my lady. But I would have you willing.”  
  
“I am your wife,” she reminds him, exasperated. “I am willing whenever you would have me.”  
  
“I would have you unafraid, as well,” he adds quietly.  
  
“Unafraid,” she echoes, disbelieving. “My lord, you are well aware that I am no maiden any longer. Do you honestly think me afraid to--”  
  
“No, Catelyn. Not of that.”  
  
“Of what, then?”  
  
He hesitates.  
  
“Of me.”  
  
She stiffens, and tries to pull away from him, but he holds her fast.  
  
“I am not afraid of you,” she informs him, all the more icily for the flush of embarrassment that he must have seen it so clearly that night, that it has coloured his perception of their every conversation since.  
  
His smile is sad, humourless.  
  
“You hide it well. And it is no failing of yours. But ever since—of late, you have looked at me as something to be wary of, and for a time you pulled away when I came too near, too quickly. I have stayed away because I thought it best to let you come to me when you wished it. It would be...troubling to see fear in your eyes when we lie together.”  
  
For a long moment, she is silent, jaw clenched tightly against the overwhelming urge to ask if he'd any concept of the difference between fear and anger, or fear and heartbreak; to ask how, exactly, she was to know that he expected her to be so forward as to demand her husband's attentions when he has taken such pains to avoid her. But none of this is the way to repair the damage between them, and she is growing very tired of knowing for certain that she will spend each night alone.  
  
And so, rather than give voice to any of the half dozen bitter, angry thoughts that crowd her mind, she leans in very close, until her lips are barely brushing his, and asks very seriously,  
  
“Do I seem frightened  _now_ , my lord?”   
  
She feels more than sees him shake his head, before he closes the scant distance between them and to brush her lips gently with his own.  
  
The kiss is soft, and sweet, and the very last thing she wants from him this night, when all she can feel in it is that he lies and thinks her still afraid. With a noise of protest as he moves to pull away, she tightens her hold at the back of his neck and kisses him with a ferocity to prove that fear is the last thing she is feeling.  
  
And perhaps it does, or perhaps the way she moves against him carries the message clearly enough, for with the first slow roll of her hips against his, he tears his mouth from hers and drags her shift up over her head with a haste that startles her.  
  
Before the surprise in her face can become guilt in his, she kisses him again, slides her hand down his chest, over his thigh, to grip his cock, and thinks absurdly that if he tries to push her away and run this time, he may find himself pursued by large, heavy objects rather than a reproachful question.  
  
He does push her away, but running seem the last thing on his mind, unless he means to do so naked. She watches, delighted, as his clothing falls into a heap on the floor, even more delighted at the thought that he must be desperate indeed to have her, for she has never seen him disrobe without laying everything neatly over a chair. Hiding a smile, she recalls how he frowned at her the first – and last – time that she failed to do the same, simply letting her gown crumple to the floor, thinking to take care of it after her husband's needs had been seen to.  
  
It is not something she truly feared, that he has been going to see other women, but all the same, she is glad that his impatience now would seem to indicate that he has not, as he sits, takes her hands, and tugs her insistently back into his lap, guiding her to him with a hand at her lower back.  
  
It makes her gladder still that his eyes are fixed on her, that he neither closes them nor buries his face in her shoulder – the better, she has imagined once or twice in moments of dark self-pity, to fool himslf that he is with the one he truly wants – and the only name on his lips when she sinks slowly down onto him until he is fully sheathed inside her, is her own.  
  
His mouth finds her breasts as they move together, but still he keeps his eyes on her face, and with every noise of pleasure that escapes her, the movement of his lips and tongue on her flesh grows less gentle and more insistent, and his hands at her hips guide her in a quicker pace.  
  
This suits her very well indeed, for the growing ache in her legs from the recently unfamiliar activity cannot compare to the sweet ache spreading through her from where they are joined, and her breathing is ragged with need far more than exertion. He pulls her hips to his again and again, pushing up into her a little harder each time, until he pushes her, shaking and clinging to him and panting his name, over the edge.  
  
She rests limply against him for a brief moment, dazed and sated, before it fully registers that he is still moving restlessly beneath her. Reaching between their bodies, she wraps her fingers around the base of his cock, squeezes and strokes in time with his thrusts.  
  
Almost at once, he clutches her tighter as he finds his peak, flooding her with warmth. She watches, entranced, for whatever she may feel towards him (and what she feels towards him, she cannot entirely say), her husband's face when he is lost to his pleasure remains one of the most beautiful things she has ever seen.  
  
After, they remain tangled together for a long while, before he moves her off of his lap and reaches for the furs still heaped at the foot of the bed to tuck around her. She gives him a brief, grateful smile as he rises to dress, saddened, but not terribly surprised when she finds that she no longer wants to look at him just now.  
  
Her body feels sleepily, bonelessly content, but stll she tenses with the effort not to pull away from the tender kiss that may well be meant for another, and when he hesitates and looks back at her from the door, she does not try to stop him leaving.  
  
She is angry still, feels it churning inside her when she looks at him, and thinks that this is not like to change in the immediate future.  
  
But she is confident now that it will change, that what anger he still bears towards her for asking of things he does not wish to discuss will fade as well, for this night has made her confident that he, too, wants more for their marriage than it has been of late.  
  
It is the knowledge that she is not to be alone in seeking more that makes the difference between her anger these past moons, dreary and helpless and hopeless of an end, and her anger tonight. Tonight, she still feels acutely the hurt of that night, still feels acutely the presence of his other son and all the things it must signify and may come to signify, but can acknowledge that he regrets having hurt her, even if he still does not feel that he can trust her.   
  
She hopes that this trust will come in time, that he will come to see her as a source of comfort to help soothe the sorrow of all that he has lost, but tonight has made her content to wait.


End file.
